DISSENTING KNOWLEDGES PAMPHLET SERIES

Published by Citizens International (Penang) and Multiversity (Penang/Goa)

This pamphlet series initiative is one of several commenced by Multiversity.
Pamphlets have long had an association with revolutions and movements for social reform, and they played an instrumental role in creating the conditions for change at a ime when, though literacy rates were low and education was the privilege of the few, politics had not been reduced to something as farcical as electoral democracy where one must often choose between indistinguishable candidates or, in common parlance, the lesser of the two evils. Pamphlets played an unusually important role, for instance, in the American War on Independence, the French Revolution, and the Indian independence movement, and anarchists, socialists, and labor unions all took advantage of the cheap pamphlet to disseminate widely their ideas. Serious reading has been on the decline nearly
everywhere in our times and the art of pamphleteering has similarly suffered a precipitous decline in the twentieth century, at least in the modern West, though there are a few signs of its revival. The resuscitation of the pamphlet may be one of the many necessary steps that have to be taken to generate a renewed sense of political urgency.

The pamphlets in the series are, in a few cases, reprints (with minor revisions) of existing works, but for the most part the titles were commissioned and specially
written for the series. The intent of the series is to offer the reader radically
different perspectives on politics and culture in the twentieth century, to enlargen
the reader's frame of reference for understanding such phenomena as dissent, and to open up a conversation on the politics of knowledge. In some cases, this will entail a thoroughgoing critique of the social sciences; in other cases, the reader is likely to become aware of the political significance of a movement such as the one initiated by the Zapatistas.

The series was commenced in October 2004 and six titles have appeared so far. The intent is to produce six new titles every year, and translations into other languages are being sought. These titles are available from Citizens International [www.citizens.org] or by email inquiry at this address: cizs@tm.net.my
Readers in India and from around the world can also acquire the titles from the Other India Bookstore, which is online at http://www.otherindiabookstore.com/index.jsp

The following titles are in print:

Gustavo Esteva, "Celebration of Zapatismo" (no. 1, 2004)

Frederique Apffel-Marglin & Margaret Bruchac, "Exorcising Anthropology's Demons" (no. 2, 2004)

Ashis Nandy, "The Twentieth Century: The Ambivalent Homecoming of Homo Psychologicus" (no. 3, 2004)

Vinay Lal, "Empire and the Dream-Work of America" (no. 4, 2004)

Roby Rajan, "The Tyranny of Economics: Global Governance and the Dismal Science" (no. 5, 2005)

Nancy Scheper-Hughes, "The Last Commodity: Post-Human Ethics, Global (in)Justice, and the Traffic in Organs" (no. 6, 2005)